16 Jun 2022

Amman, Jordan – Inappropriate messages, flirtatious comments, and physical sexual harassment – the allegations against a professor at the Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST) began as a trickle, but quickly turned into a deluge, first online, and then on national media.

#TechnoHarrasser – as the case became known – went viral at the start of June and eventually led to the physics professor’s suspension from work, and a referral to Jordan’s prosecutor general’s office for further investigation.

The case has shocked Jordanians, both because of the number of students who decided to share their accounts of alleged sexual harassment by the professor, but also because it has led to a wider debate about the prevalence of sexual harassment in Jordanian society.

Seba Al-Taamari, a 21-year-old second-year student at JUST, has released multiple students’ accounts of alleged harassment from the professor on her Twitter account.

Al-Taamari told Al Jazeera that she had received accounts from former students going back as far as 2006, highlighting how long the alleged actions had been taking place.

The professor, according to the posts, would require female students to meet him privately in his office where he would often attempt to sexually harass them.

An anonymous student told Jordan’s Roya television the professor had “insisted” she come to his office and that she was “verbally harassed”, noting she had text messages as proof of the incident.

In a live conversation with Roya on June 5, another anonymous JUST student told how one day after a lecture, the professor touched a student who waiting to ask questions “in the most sensitive areas of her body”.

The accused professor also spoke to Roya, denying the allegations, saying he had been “subjected to a fierce campaign by the students”, that the videos and posts that had been shared were “fabricated” and that he had “never touched anyone”.